Things I Learned from Television

We have had an existential crisis in our house this week: the television died.

Not just any television. This is Beloved's bachelor pride-and-joy, a 57-inch big screen. I hated it when we started dating and was very unsure that I could actually be with a guy who would have a big-screen, until we watched a few movies on it and then - ah, the shame - I became a convert. Smaller would still be okay with me, but this one is already paid for. So we'll stick with it.

Naturally, the repairman is going to come any day now, which is what he's been saying for the last week. On the positive side, we've been getting a lot of reading done.

Yesterday morning, I fell down the stairs leaving the house. It had rained a little, just enough to make the wood deck slippery, and somehow I took a header down the back deck, hitting my legs on the way down and landing face-down (though thankfully not on my face) on the ground. Ouch. I sprained my right ankle and gave myself a huge goose-egg on my left shin. Ouch ouch. I was on my way to meet a friend for coffee, so after I picked myself up and sat for a minute, I decided I was well enough to go. This was very likely my need for caffeine speaking more loudly than the pain.

By the end of our coffee hour, my ankle hurt so badly that I started to worry something might be really wrong. I ended up at the urgent care clinic ("urgent" being a relative term, seeing as how it took them nearly 90 minutes to see me). Mainly, I was worried that I might have a hairline fracture and since I'm flying to Minneapolis on Sunday for a week, I really didn't want to end up 1500 miles away with a broken foot.

But the real reason behind my clinic visit, the image running through my head, was this: you know the person who comes into the ER on Grey's Anatomy and refuses to get checked out, insists he or she is just fine, and then walks away without ever having a doctor investigate their pain? You know that person? You know what always happens to that person on Grey's Anatomy? THEY DIE. Every time.

It turns out my foot is badly sprained but not broken. I will survive. Also, the doctor who saw me was no McDreamy (though he was very kind). So life goes on. But we better get the TV fixed because, you know, TV can save your life.

Or it can cost you an inordinate amount in copays because you are paranoid. Hmmm. Maybe we should leave it broken.